THE INFINITE DESIRE

The American jazz/fusion guitarist and composer Al DiMeola seems to get the best PA ratings for his earliest albums from the latter half of the 70's. I'm familiar with only a small bunch of his albums, and less so with the early ones. Anyway, I quite enjoy this particular album with a rather lukewarm reception here.

The contributors pretty much vary from track to track, keyboardist Rachel Z clearly being the most consistent one. Al himself uses a great variety of instruments on this electric and accessible album entirely composed by him. 'Beyond the Mirage' is a very nice opener. There's a shadow of digitally programmed over-production in sight, but due to rich and energetic playing full of fine, fast melodies the outcome stays positive. The next, mellower piece has some world music flavour and reminds me of Pat Metheny, my fave jazz musician.

Overall there is plenty of sonic and atmospheric variety, and while some tracks out of twelve may not be so interesting, and some are perhaps slightly too long, the 67 minutes mostly go very pleasantly. Unlike another reviewer, I generally enjoy the peaceful compositions such as the romantic title track and the brief, acoustic 'Azzura'.

On the aptly titled 'Race With Devil on Turkish Highway' DiMeola gets into an el.guitar battle with Steve Vai. Things like that keep the more energy-favouring listeners awake. The cool trumpet samples on 'Valentina' are by DiMeola. Tha album closes with a vocal version of the title track, sung by Pino Daniele. My biggest complaint concerns the sound of programmed percussion which is too much present. Drummers Peter Erskine and Ernie Adams appear only on two tracks each. But despite that I warmly recommend this album to listeners of guitar oriented fusion and artists such ad Pat Metheny.